The Steven Diamond story was on the Sad Puppies slate. IIRC, it was not on the Rabid Puppies slate. The Rabid Puppies choice was nominated, then declared ineligible and replaced with the Sad Puppies choice.

You want to understand why so many paid $40 to vote in this Hugo thing, read “The Day The World Turned Upside Down” and then read “Championship B’Tok” or “The Parliament of Beasts and Birds”. Or, ghod forbid, both.

I don’t think you’re being fair to Parliament, honestly. I think it’s good, and you should give it a chance. But yeah, I know exactly what you mean. You can’t even compare B’Tok to Upside Down, they’re in completely different leagues. Reading them makes it so sadly obviously that the Puppies didn’t bother to read their slate at all before voting for it. Maybe next year they’ll choose someone with taste to write up their slate for them.